Spotlight On: Woodworm by Layla Martinez
Initially, Woodworm was a short story. It was summer, I was spending a few days at my grandmother’s house, which is the house that appears in the novel, and I was in my bedroom, about to go to sleep, when the wardrobe door opened. In that wardrobe are not everyday clothes, but special clothes for the family, like my grandmother’s wedding dress, the habit my uncle wears during Holy Week or the dress my grandmother wants to be buried in. The door opened by itself and it was quite scary, and in that moment I knew I wanted to write about the history of that closet, the history of the house and the history of the women who had lived in it.
― Layla Martinez, Center for the Art of Translation
What booksellers are saying about Woodworm
- This was extraordinary, so original and a stellar play on the classic story of a haunted house. Captivating and thrilling, with a great ending to boot. An awesome ride.
― Emily Tarr, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama | BUY
- Woodworm is one of those books that digs itself a home under your skin. The story of four generations of women and the ghosts–both literal and figurative–they live with, Woodworm tackles violence, generational trauma, and a feminine rage so deep it rots in your core.
― Courtney Ulrich Smith, Underbrush Books in Rogers, Arkansas | BUY
- Some books are polite when they invite you in: they hold the door, offer refreshments, let you poke around as you please for a few pleasant afternoons and then bid you farewell as you head back out into the big bright world. Woodworm doesn’t do this. It draws you in and then slams the door behind you, sealing you inside a madhouse labyrinth of chattering shadows. This is fitting, as Woodworm is a novel about traps: generations of women trapped in a house beset with ghosts and insectoid angels; a village trapped by poverty; far too many girls trapped inside the purgatory of disempowerment and violence against their bodies; and the final trap: that little worm of uncontrollable rage that burrows its way inside your guts and never lets you sleep while your enemies live… I literally gripped this book so tightly that I bent its cover. Part of me will remain within its pages for a long, long time.
― Charlie Monroe, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina | BUY
About Layla Martinez
Layla Martínez (Madrid, 1987) is the author of two nonfiction books in Spanish, Surrogate Pregnancy (Pepitas de calabaza, 2019) and Utopia is not an Island (Episkaia, 2020), as well as stories and articles in numerous anthologies. She has translated essays and novels, writes about music for El Salto, and about television for La Última Hora. Since 2014 she has co-directed the independent publisher Antipersona. Woodworm is her first novel.
Sophie Hughes is a British literary translator who primarily translates from Spanish to English. She has translated more than a dozen books, including the works of José Revueltas and Enrique Vila-Matas for New Directions. She was shortlisted for the 2019 and 2020 International Booker Prize.
Annie McDermott is a translator working from Spanish and Portuguese. Her published and forthcoming translations include Empty Words and The Luminous Novel by Mario Levrero, Dead Girls and Brickmakers by Selva Almada, Feebleminded by Ariana Harwicz (co-translation with Carolina Orloff), and Loop by Brenda Lozano. She also reviews books for the Times Literary Supplement. She has previously lived in Mexico City and São Paulo, Brazil, and now lives by the sea in Hastings, UK.
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